As you can probably tell by the fact that we have a travel blog, we like to travel as a family. A lot.
We don’t have unlimited funds for doing so, and I’ve always been very frugal about our travels. We typically avoid resorts with only occasional short exceptions, we get off the beaten tourist path for activities, and… we only book vacations if we get a great flight deal.
This has been true since we first started traveling long before kids, and it remains true today, although with some notable differences.
One of my absolute favorite tricks? Being a Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights) member.
And while it is the case that I am an affiliate for Going (meaning they will give me a small cut if you sign up after clicking on my link – thanks if you do!), I was a very happy member for years before becoming an affiliate. And I was actively sharing my great experience with Going on this blog before I was an affiliate… simply because I believe you deserve to know what it is and how it has saved us literally thousands of dollars.
How I used to search for cheap flights
I’ve been in the cheap flight game for many years. Over a decade ago I enjoyed using Hopper, but only for the “explore” feature which you could access without the app – and I wanted nothing to do with the app. But then Google Flights added the same feature, and it was a game changer!
Hopper’s, and now Google’s, Explore allows you to put in dates (or a range, like “2 weeks in July”) and it populates the map with the best prices available to each location. You can look at the world map, or zoom in to a country or region. This helped me tremendously in my cheap flight hunt, and was when I really started to get good at “going where the deals are”. If I knew the dates I was available to travel, I would look all over the world and narrow locations down by relative price.
I say relative price because, after spending enough months perusing Google Flights, I had a really good sense of what constituted a “good” price for a region. Sub-$500 to Mexico from my home airport? A so-so deal. Sub-$500 to Europe? A great deal!
And when I would find a really great deal to somewhere on our (extensive) wish list, that’s where we would travel.
This method worked. It still works. And I still use it when we have more specific needs for our flights, like if we need to travel for a specific event.
But it took a lot of my time. And after having kids, that is something that is in short supply.
Why I switched to Scott’s Cheap Flights – now called Going
I had heard of SCF from friends, as well as all over blogs. I figured it couldn’t give me anything that I couldn’t do myself on Google Flights. And in a sense, that is true. Except that I couldn’t keep on checking Google Flights each week like I had been. And even then, I knew that I was actually missing many deals, because airlines often do sales that are very short – like less than 48 hours.
So I decided to try out the Limited membership, which is free. And I was shocked by how many deals I was seeing!
I stuck with Limited for about 6 months. It was enough time for me to fully understand the service and see that, for the way we travel, it was a great fit. And then I switched to a Premium membership and my cheap flight game reached a whole new level.
Because of my Going membership, our family has saved thousands of dollars, and visited places that we would absolutely not have otherwise.
My biggest Going success
We’ve booked several flights based on Going deals, including Vietnam, Mexico, Hawaii, Bahamas, and Belize. But the best deal I’ve ever booked from Going was Tahiti last Christmas.
Tahiti has always been a bucket list destination for our family, but not one that we expected to make it to anytime soon. While I’ve checked it often, I had never seen it lower than $1400 per person from our home airport, SeaTac. And that was for the off-season.
But then Air Tahiti Nui opened a new, nonstop route from SeaTac to Tahiti, and offered a massive sale to kick off the new route. I never would have known, except when suddenly an email from Going pops up that says “Tahiti – $700s”.
$700s??? This can’t be real, I think. But sure enough, it is. And better yet, it includes late December. Unheard-of.
Once we got our specific dates entered and upgraded our tickets to main cabin (more about why we do that below), we ended up spending under $900 per person for nonstop flights with pretty ideal departure times. And this was for absolute peak travel time – 10 days over Christmas break and entirely within the school break window.
Those prices right now as I type this (during summer, the best time to book for Christmas)? $2700 per person. Which is honestly pretty standard for winter break travel.
That’s about $7000 more that would cost my family to take that trip this year than it did last year.
We 100% would not have traveled to Tahiti that Christmas had it not been for that awesome deal. We would have spent at least the same money, probably more, going somewhere much closer and less bucket-list-y.
How does Going work?
Going is basically a subscription to an email. You sign up for whichever airports you are interested in tracking. I personally follow my home airport, but also 2 others that are within a 3 hour drive that sometimes get deals good enough that it’s worth the drive. Whenever a good deal pops up, they’ll send you an email with the details.
The email will include what cities are involved, the general price range they’ve found, and the general date range. They only send deals with several days (or weeks) of availability – never the one-offs where there is a random good price for a single day.
The deals are usually for flights about 3-9 months out, and often are during peak season and over the holidays – no need to worry that you’ll only get deals for times you don’t want to travel.
From the email, you can click directly into a Google Flights search with the details added. From there, you can play around with dates as needed, and then book.
Typically flight deals are available for 24 – 48 hours, so you do want to jump on it quickly. This is where the US DOT’s 24-hour free cancellation is super helpful. For any flight originating from a US airport, airlines are required to let you cancel for free for 24 hours after you book.
So if you find an amazing deal and want to make sure you book before you’re able to iron out all the details, you can do so knowing that you have 1 day to cancel if needed.
Going does not make any money from the airlines or Google Flights, so there is zero incentive for them to show you certain deals over others. They send everything that they think is worthwhile. All of their revenue comes from the membership cost and ads that they include in the Limited membership emails.
How often do you get emails?
This can really vary depending on your airports (how often they get good deals) and the time of year. I’m signed up for SeaTac, Portland, and a small regional airport near us. For SeaTac, I get on average 3-5 emails per week. For Portland, I get an email once a week at best, but often less. However, I would still find this worthwhile if Portland were my home airport, because I see some really solid deals come through there!
What are the membership tiers?
Going has 3 tiers. A Limited membership is free, and gets some of the emails for your chosen airport. This is where I started and got really comfortable with the Going system, but honestly it was after I switched to Premium that I actually started seeing deals that I booked.
A Premium membership costs $49 USD per year, and gives you significantly more deals (including more peak and holiday travel), and also gives you access to Mistake Fares from your followed airports.
What are Mistake Fares? Sometimes airlines mess up, and list a price that is clearly a mistake. We’re talking like $63 roundtrip from Atlanta to Chile – a real deal that folks have booked thanks to Going! Usually airlines correct themselves within hours, so you have to book these pronto. And occasionally the airlines will not honor the fare, but often they do if you’ve booked quickly.
I’ve only seen mistake fares out of SeaTac a handful of times, and it never worked for me to book. But that is the most exciting email to see in your inbox! A Limited membership will not get you the Mistake Fares.
An Elite membership gets you the Premium membership deals, plus deals in Premium Economy, Business, and First Class. If you tend to travel in these higher tier cabins, this would definitely be worth it for you! Elite members also get all the Mistake Fares from any airport, because sometimes those prices are so good it warrants a second ticket to get to the originating airport. Just don’t book that second ticket until you know for sure the airline is honoring the Mistake Fare.
Elite membership costs $199 USD per year.
Want to learn more about how Going works? This page has all the info you need!
Who is Going right for?
Going is perfect for people who like to explore. If you have a very set idea about where you want to travel for the next several years, you may not get that much out of a Going membership. You could still sign up and only keep an eye out for when your destination pops up with a good deal – but you could just set up a flight alert through Google and not get the emails that don’t apply to you.
But if the idea of an unexpected location popping into your inbox with a stellar deal excites you, Going will probably be a good fit.
Going is also great if you care about saving money. I know that sounds flippant, but I also understand that a lot of people set aside plenty of funds for their vacations, and they don’t worry so much about saving $500 here or there on flights. If you prefer to decide on a destination and just book it regardless of price, Going is probably not a great fit.
Isn’t Going only for backpackers and those willing to take terrible flights?
So here’s the thing. I assumed when I started using Going that it would just send me the dirt-cheap flights. You know, the ultra-budget airlines, the 20-hour layovers, and the 3-stoppers.
That is not what Going does at all.
Going uses a “bestie test” for any deal that they send. Meaning, this is a deal that they would be comfortable sending to their bestie. They rule out anything from ultra-budget (and some budget) airlines that are known for terrible service. They don’t send deals that require insane layovers or several stops to get the good price. There was a day (pre-kids) when we could deal with any of that nonsense. But these days, we need decent flights.
And then there’s always Elite if you want the really cushy deals!
That being said, there are a few adaptations that I’ve made to how I use Going nowadays.
Using Going for family travel
When I get my Going emails now as a family traveler, I always add about $100 to the amount and ask myself if it still feels like a killer deal. It usually does.
There are two reasons for this:
Upgrading the cabin class
The prices that Going sends you, while they always pass the “bestie test”, are still going to be the cheapest class of tickets – typically Economy. Unless you get the Elite membership, where you’ll be sent deals for premium economy, business, and first class.
The difference between Economy and Main Class (or their equivalents) are usually the baggage allowance, when you get to board, and the ability to choose your seat.
We couldn’t care less about baggage allowance. We always travel carry-on only, so it doesn’t impact us.
We also don’t care about boarding order. We did, when we were dealing with flying with a baby and installing car seats and all that, but we would always take advantage of early boarding for families with young children so it didn’t matter what our official boarding group was. And now that our girls are a bit older, we are in no rush to get on the plane early – who wants to sit there longer than necessary with squirmy kids?
However, we do care about choosing our seats.
When you fly economy, with many airlines, there is literally no guarantee that you will be sitting with your child. Doesn’t matter if your child is 3.
That being said, the US DOT is trying to convince airlines to always seat a child with their guardian. In February of 2023, they launched a handy dashboard (see previous link) that shows which airlines guarantee to sit a parent and child together. Spoiler alert: right now that’s a guarantee on Alaska, American, Frontier (surprisingly), and Jet Blue. But not Delta, United, Allegiant, Spirit, or Southwest. Keep in mind that means that each child is seated with one adult, and does not necessarily mean the whole family is seated together.
But even if we are able to ensure that each parent is seated with a child, that’s really not good enough for anything longer than 2 hours for us. We share carry-on space for kid supplies, and we tend to share and switch back-and-forth the iPad. While there is a good chance that airlines would be able to seat us all close together, if there’s no guarantee, then I’m paying the extra $30-80 per person to upgrade.
Nonstop only, please
Another thing that we’ve learned from enough years of flying with toddlers and babies: layovers really suck. I mean, they sucked before we had kids, but now they have the potential to completely throw off sleep schedules, and getting sleep right when traveling with a baby or toddler is a top priority.
So if we’re looking at a destination that has nonstop flights, we’ll pretty much always choose that option. And that’s usually going to cost more than the price Going has sent… though not always, like in the case of our Tahiti flight.
Between those two issues, we sometimes end up spending $100-200 beyond what Going sends us. But for the really killer deals, we’re still getting amazing savings.
Does Going sound like it might be a good fit for you, like it is for us? There is zero risk in trying out the Limited membership – it’s free! Or, better yet, sign up for the free trial of a Premium account and really get a feel for how great Going can be.
If you have any questions about our experience with Going, leave them in the comments!
